powerful enough to resuscitate my flaggingconfidence, possibly even enough to sway a jury, if not the FBI.
Thank you, I say again, trying to distance my mind from the idea of police questioning Drewe. Your dad offered to use his connections if we need them.
He must really be upset.
Hes just worried about you. Does he really have connections high enough to help in something like this?
She shrugs. He knows the governor. Can a state governor influence the FBI?
I shake my head. I dont know. Lets hope we never have to find out.
She goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a lemon pie that a churchy Baptist neighbor brought over yesterday. Drewe was raised Methodist, but since she rarely attends church, her Baptist patients never cease trying to pull her into their fold. They know Im a hopeless case. Drewe and I attack the pie for a couple of minutes in silence, more than making up for the calories we burned in the truck.
This is sinful, she mumbles through a huge bite of pale yellow filling. She always scoops out the filling and leaves the crust.
Praise God, I manage to reply in a mocking mushmouth.
She flicks her fork at me, plopping a piece of meringue onto my cheek. When she laughs, her eyes sparkle like stars, and in that moment I feel the weight of my secret lift from my shoulders just long enough to sense the lightness of peace.
Then something closes around my heart with suffocating power. Its like a Chinese torture: the better things are, the worse they are.
Whats the matter? Drewe is studying me as she might a patient having a sudden stroke.
Nothing. I just remembered something I need to take care of. A couple of long positions in Singapore. Boring but necessary.
Oh.
The realization that tomorrow is a workday instantly manifests itself throughout her frame. Her shouldershunch slightly, her eyelids fall, she sighs with resignation. But more dispiriting than work is the realization that our unusual moment of closeness is over.
Im whipped, she says. You coming to bed?
I shake my head, averting my eyes. Id better check the Singapore Exchange.
She looks long enough to let me know she knows I am at least partially lying. Then she turns and walks toward the bedroom.
I move quickly toward my office.
Ive got to talk to Miles.
CHAPTER 10
When I check my e-mail, I find two messages from Miles. I click the mouse and open the first. Seeing the length of the text, I push ALT-V to activate the most unique feature on my EROS computerits voice.
The first time I heard EROS speak I felt strange. Then I realized it was not the first time I had heard a computer talk. The telephone companys computers had been talking to me for years. I had toyed with digital sampling keyboards that could exactly reproduce anything from a thundering bass to a contralto soprano. The voice chip inside the EROS computer is similar. However, it is not voice-recognition technology. Getting a computer to verbalize text displayed on its screen is relatively simple. Getting one to recognize millions of different voices speaking with hundreds of different accentseven in one languageis currently taxing the best brains in the R and D departments of the worlds top high-tech firms.
EROS cannot hear.
But it does talk. Its voice can take on any pitch between twenty and twenty thousand hertz, which is slightly superfluous since my multimedia speakers bottom out at around one hundred, and my rock-and-roll-damaged eardrums probably top out at ten thousand. Also, the pitch versatility is misleading. EROSs voice is not unlike Drewes when she is dictating charts. Whether I select a baritone or tenor frequency, the words will be repeated at that single pitcha perfect monotoneuntil the listener believes he is trapped inside the tin-can robot from Lost in Space . And vocal monotony is not conducive to sexual fantasy unless your idea of hot sex is having an inter-species relationship with a machine.
EROSs voice program does have whats called a lexical stress
Thank you, I say again, trying to distance my mind from the idea of police questioning Drewe. Your dad offered to use his connections if we need them.
He must really be upset.
Hes just worried about you. Does he really have connections high enough to help in something like this?
She shrugs. He knows the governor. Can a state governor influence the FBI?
I shake my head. I dont know. Lets hope we never have to find out.
She goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a lemon pie that a churchy Baptist neighbor brought over yesterday. Drewe was raised Methodist, but since she rarely attends church, her Baptist patients never cease trying to pull her into their fold. They know Im a hopeless case. Drewe and I attack the pie for a couple of minutes in silence, more than making up for the calories we burned in the truck.
This is sinful, she mumbles through a huge bite of pale yellow filling. She always scoops out the filling and leaves the crust.
Praise God, I manage to reply in a mocking mushmouth.
She flicks her fork at me, plopping a piece of meringue onto my cheek. When she laughs, her eyes sparkle like stars, and in that moment I feel the weight of my secret lift from my shoulders just long enough to sense the lightness of peace.
Then something closes around my heart with suffocating power. Its like a Chinese torture: the better things are, the worse they are.
Whats the matter? Drewe is studying me as she might a patient having a sudden stroke.
Nothing. I just remembered something I need to take care of. A couple of long positions in Singapore. Boring but necessary.
Oh.
The realization that tomorrow is a workday instantly manifests itself throughout her frame. Her shouldershunch slightly, her eyelids fall, she sighs with resignation. But more dispiriting than work is the realization that our unusual moment of closeness is over.
Im whipped, she says. You coming to bed?
I shake my head, averting my eyes. Id better check the Singapore Exchange.
She looks long enough to let me know she knows I am at least partially lying. Then she turns and walks toward the bedroom.
I move quickly toward my office.
Ive got to talk to Miles.
CHAPTER 10
When I check my e-mail, I find two messages from Miles. I click the mouse and open the first. Seeing the length of the text, I push ALT-V to activate the most unique feature on my EROS computerits voice.
The first time I heard EROS speak I felt strange. Then I realized it was not the first time I had heard a computer talk. The telephone companys computers had been talking to me for years. I had toyed with digital sampling keyboards that could exactly reproduce anything from a thundering bass to a contralto soprano. The voice chip inside the EROS computer is similar. However, it is not voice-recognition technology. Getting a computer to verbalize text displayed on its screen is relatively simple. Getting one to recognize millions of different voices speaking with hundreds of different accentseven in one languageis currently taxing the best brains in the R and D departments of the worlds top high-tech firms.
EROS cannot hear.
But it does talk. Its voice can take on any pitch between twenty and twenty thousand hertz, which is slightly superfluous since my multimedia speakers bottom out at around one hundred, and my rock-and-roll-damaged eardrums probably top out at ten thousand. Also, the pitch versatility is misleading. EROSs voice is not unlike Drewes when she is dictating charts. Whether I select a baritone or tenor frequency, the words will be repeated at that single pitcha perfect monotoneuntil the listener believes he is trapped inside the tin-can robot from Lost in Space . And vocal monotony is not conducive to sexual fantasy unless your idea of hot sex is having an inter-species relationship with a machine.
EROSs voice program does have whats called a lexical stress
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